Yet Another Index? Making an Impact in Russa – International Search Summit 2011 #SMXISS

Next up is Preston Carey, Business Development Director at Yandex, giving us an insight into the Russian search engine. Firstly an introduction and some context around the Russian market.

Markets in the developed countries are not really growing very much anymore, the two places that are booming are Russia and Asia. Russia is the seventh largest market in terms on internet users, sitting just behind Germany. Russia only has 43% internet penetration at the moment but it is growing hugely year-on-year so could easily be taking over Germany within the next 18 months.

Russia is different – it is a fairly isolated place whether that is socially, demographically or culturally and this needs to be taken into account. Its top three sites are barely used outside of the country.

In terms of search engines, Yandex has around 65% share of the market with Google following on around 22%. In November 2009, Yandex released a major new algorithm which had a huge impact on their market share. It has also made their technology language-agnostic as it is not entire MLR based.

The top social sites in Russia are very Russia-exclusive, almost all friends are within the same country therefore does not need to cross boundaires. The biggest site is VKontakte.ru.

The Russian digital advertising market is growing rapidly – total percentage of marketing spend on digital has grown from 1% to 11/12% over the last 5 or 6 years alone.

Yandex owns 80% of the text ad revenue within Russia, with Google owning about 15-20%.

To win in certain markets, locak knowledge is key. This is a long-term competitive edge.

Yandex – The Facts

Russia’s number one search engine

65% market share in search in Russia

OVer 54 m users per month

Over 20 years of development

Differentiation

Local market dominance

Breadth and reach for all demographics

Machine learning based organic engine

2011 Initiatives

Local search/location based services

Global expansion

IPO on NASDAQ

What is Yandex?

Not just a search engine, more of a portal – also a news aggregator, blog search, photo sharing, mail provider

Yandex’s has a list of owned and operated websites, on which it can place its text ads.

Like Google, Yandex also has an AdSense style network and partner sites.

Top ten industries on Yandex:

Automotive

Banking & Finance

Business Services

Construction

Consumer SHopping

Housing and Rentals

Manufacturing

Personal Health

Real Estate

Tourism

Only 26% of the internet audience for Yandex are in the two biggest cities in Russia – Moscow and St Petersburg. Geo-targeting and understanding who you are trying to reach is crucial to your campaign.

SEO for Yandex

The organic engine was rewritten and launched as MatrixNet in Nov 2009 therefore most of the old advice doesn’t apply anymore.

About Annabel Hodges

Originally from the UK via France and Malaysia, Annabel Hodges is a digital marketer with long experience in the industry now residing in Sydney. She heads up the Digital Marketing at Next Commerce, working across an array of products, channels and brands.

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